Admin Note: Introducing "The HC" (Please Read)

[Jamison]

With the new year here, theVPN wants to open up more doors for both its current and future members. Among the list of new ideas to do so, is the Help Center. What we hope to bring is helpful scriptwriting techniques, tips, and general information on the subject of writing. HC Admins should post new topics, regularly (both taken from writing blogs & developed right here on VPN) in order to cover as much ground as we can.

There is no one way to write, and there are very few guidebooks that can teach a person how to write, but The Help Center is being formed to give both new, and experienced writers an opportunity to discover and improve their own techniques, as well as help others gain the confidence to actually start that first script, novel, poem, the list goes on.

theVPN: 2012 is all about reaching out, asking for help, and also giving it where it's wanted/needed. The Help Center is just one way of doing that. With The HC being a new project, we're going to open it up to everyone on the board. How? The thread you're in now will act as a Q&A board, of sorts, where you will be able to tell us exactly what you'd like to be touched on within in The HC, and ask any question you'd like for us to answer once The Help Center makes it's official launch in the coming weeks. This is a group effort, so we would appreciate anyone's input.

Thank you for your time, and Happy New Years! ;D

- theVPN Admin Team

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Side Note: The Help Center is now looking for Admins that will be willing and dedicated to finding helpful writing information, as well as speaking out and sharing their own techniques, stories and advice. Positions open:

- Help Center Scout: Searches the web, finding useful writing hints, guides, and advice blogs to share in the HC, but would rather not write their own.

- Help Center Advisor: Searches the web, finding useful writing hints, guides, and advice blogs to share in the HC, as well as provide their own techniques in written format.

If anyone is interested, feel free to send a private message to either myself, or Jason T. Davis.

Any one can apply, but it is encouraged that those applying for the HC Advisor position have working knowledge of the basics of scriptwriting, however, like I said before, there is no one way to write, and we are open to all styles of writing. The Help Center is not a guide to writing, it is a place to advise, improve and communicate with fellow writers to gain a fuller understanding of the art of writing, as well as the variety of techniques that go along with it.

[Deleted]

I appreciate this thread starting up and the changes that the new year is bringing to theVPN. I am thankful I can be a part of it and I hope that I can get some of my own ideas out there this year.

I guess one of my first questions I have been asking myself lately is where do you start, in regards to script writing? I have never written in script style before so I do not know any of the rules or techniques. What would some of the writers here on theVPN give as advice to someone brand new to script writing? Anything will be helpful.

[Amin]

Read, read, read. That would be my first advice. Read a lot of different scripts and study how they're built up.

[Aimee Nicole]

^ Definitely what Amin said. I'm relatively new to script-writing as well (The Outcasts pilot was my first script, ever) and I read a bunch of other scripts both official and fan-made ones here on theVPN. I also looked up TONS of different tips and spent some serious quality time going over the terms and stuff used in scripts. In fact, I STILL go over them every now and then when I feel like my scripts are lacking. So doing that sort of thing definitely, definitely helps.